


Put Your Faith in More than Steel

by cytheriafalas



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, M/M, Self Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine doesn't consider himself a cutter, exactly, even if that's what he is. Kurt finds out his secret, and he doesn't exactly take it well. I've seen all of the Kurt-or-Blaine-self-injures-and-the-other-is-loving-and-caring-and-accepting fics. I thought those were just a little bit unlikely, so I wanted to write a fic where Kurt wasn't. I don't really know how this came out of it.</p>
<p>There are a couple scenes of someone self-injuring, and a lot of inner monologue of someone struggling with it. If this could even remotely possibly be a trigger for you, please do not read this. I considered not posting this for a long time, but I wanted to see what other people thought of it. There's a little bit of blood, and a lot of emotional angst. Trigger and squick warnings apply. Seriously, guys. Potential triggers.</p>
<p>Repost from my lj</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

His right hand clenched on the desk. His fingers caught the handle of the knife, sending it skittering to the floor. He flinched away from the sound, eyes flicking to the door. It was locked, and David had gone home for the weekend for his sister’s birthday. Almost furtively, he bent and picked it up. He tried to drop it back onto his desk, but his rebellious fingers wouldn’t let him, curling more tightly around the pale wood of the handle.

“C’mon, Blaine,” he whispered to himself, counting on the music he could hear blasting through the hallway to block any sounds from his room. It would be another couple of minutes before the RAs came to scold them. “Set it down.”

But rather than loosening, his grip tightened again. His hand moved, he swore without his permission, and after the initial sting, relief poured through his body. It was like stepping into a warm building in the middle of winter. Every muscle that had knotted with stress or fatigue loosened; the headache that had been building while he warred with himself for the last half hour faded.

Despite the physical relief, he was disgusted with himself. He yanked open a drawer hard enough to rattle the runners, buried the knife under years of notebooks from his Italian classes, and slammed it shut again. He almost thought he could hear the knife rattling inside, but it was impossible. With the paranoia implicit in what he’d done, he’d  _made_  it impossible for anyone to hear it. Blaine looked around for a Kleenex, or napkin, or towel, or anything, but there was nothing within reach. He pulled his arms into his chest, right arm pressing his left into his shirt. Dampness seeped into his chest, and he swore softly to himself. This wasn’t worth the momentary relief, and he couldn’t stop anyway.

Blaine jumped when his phone started ringing. The name on the display made a lump of guilt rise in his throat.

“Hey, Kurt.”

Kurt paused, as though hearing something in Blaine’s voice, but when he spoke, he sounded as cheerful as ever. “Blaine!”

“What’s up?”

“Carol’s off with Finn at a football game. Dad’s heading there after work. He said you can come over because my car’s getting fixed, if you want. Do you?”

Blaine had to grin. Kurt’s words tumbled after one another so fast it was almost hard to understand him. “Sure, I’ll be there.”

“Great! The door’s unlocked. I’ll be in my room when you get here.”

The phone clicked off and Blaine sighed. He stood up painfully, the earlier tranquility of his body had faded almost as quickly as it had come, leaving him stiff and uncomfortable. He rinsed his wrist off in the sink, watching with a knot in his stomach as the last of the pink-stained water swirled down the drain. He ran the water a little longer than necessary to be sure the last of his failure had disappeared. His t-shirt was stained, and probably ruined, so he pulled it off, burying it beneath layers of Dalton red and blue. He’d deal with it later.

It was unseasonably warm for May. Even so, he pulled a sweater out of his closet and threw it on over another t-shirt. He threw together a bag of clothes and overnight things, knowing full well how these visits usually turned out. He generally fell asleep over there, and woke up to Kurt kicking him out, or at least making him go to the couch, an hour before Burt got home. He’d just put the key in the lock when he heard someone calling his name from down the hallway.

“Blaine!”

“Yeah, Jeff?” Blaine asked, turning toward his voice.

“Going somewhere?”

Blaine finished locking the door before he answered, jangling the keys in Jeff’s face. “Kurt’s. His family’s off to Finn’s football game and he’s lonely.”

Jeff winked. “Sure he is.”

Blaine hit him good-naturedly in the shoulder. “Bye, Jeff.”

“Have fun with Kurt,” Jeff called after him, loud enough to wake the entire floor, if they hadn’t been awake already.

He tossed a wave over his shoulder with his free hand. The rough wool of his sweater brushed against his raw wrist and he flinched, pressing the arm against his side to comfort the pain. It didn’t help. The pain just flared again at the pressure.

With a disgusted sigh, Blaine considered calling Kurt and telling him he’d forgotten some big homework assignment. But he knew Kurt wouldn’t buy it, especially after the way he’d answered the phone that evening. A deaf person would have known that something was wrong. And knowing Kurt, Blaine thought as he started his car, he probably had some grand plan for the night.

That didn’t stop him from being certain that this was a bad plan. Normally, he would spend the next few hours, at least, alone in his room, silently hating himself for his own pathetic weakness until he felt nauseous. The sharp stinging would subside in a day or so, and then the cut would fade to just one more scar on top of all the others.

He’d never been like… the rest of them. He couldn’t even think the word without flinching, without feeling revulsion rising in him. He’d never been like other cutters, the ones with the scars up and down their arms, or legs, or stomachs. No, everything about Blaine Anderson was neat and orderly, even the parts of him that weren’t.

But as he pulled up outside Kurt’s house, even the soft glow of lights from Kurt’s window, warm and inviting, didn’t make him feel any better. He turned on the dome light in the car and checked his reflection. He looked calm and his smile was real enough to pass muster. A glance at his wrist showed it had already stopped bleeding. His cuts weren’t deep anymore; he’d managed to control that much, at least.

He tugged the sleeve down with as much finality as he could gather, and headed toward Kurt’s room. He was familiar enough with the family that he no longer felt awkward just walking in without knocking. He could hear Kurt’s voice floating from his room, singing softly to himself.

“Kurt?” he called, raising his voice just enough for Kurt to be able to hear him through the door.

The song ended abruptly and the door flew open. Kurt was standing there, dressed in what was probably the most casual clothing Blaine had ever seen him in. He was wearing baggy sweats and a shirt so tight it might have been painted on. Blaine felt the subtle shift of facial muscles turning his fake smile into a real one. He truly did love this boy.

“Hey,” Kurt said, stepping aside. “Come in.”

He did, and drew Kurt into his arms as soon as the door shut behind him. Kurt was warm and beautiful and so very comfortingly Kurt. He smelled of vanilla and chocolate, and somewhere beneath that he could smell the suggestion of oil and gasoline. Kurt nuzzled closer, seeking the kiss that Blaine gladly gave him, a brush of lip and tongue, the barest hint of teeth. But Kurt drew away, eyes darkening with concern.

“Are you okay?” Kurt asked, brushing Blaine’s curls off his forehead. “You seem a little…” he trailed off, shrugging gracefully.

“A week’s too long to go without seeing you,” Blaine said. It wasn’t a lie, not really. He had missed Kurt, and some treacherous part of him thought that if Kurt were at Dalton, he wouldn’t have been so weak. But it didn’t matter. Kurt was smiling.

“Wanna watch  _Gypsy_?”

Blaine planted a kiss at the corner of Kurt’s mouth and let himself be led toward the bed. Kurt stopped short and plucked at the fabric of Blaine’s sweater.

“Honey, I love you, but I’m not cuddling with you in that. It’s too warm. And scratchy. Why do you wear that anyway?”

Blaine froze, a wave of panic rushing through him. “I’m…” His mind raced, coming up with only a few conclusions that weren’t ‘run.’ But he could do this. If he was careful, if he kept his hand on Kurt, he would never see. He nodded mechanically, reaching to pull the sweater off.

It only took them a few moments to get comfortable in Kurt’s bed, Blaine’s arms around him, his left hand against Kurt’s chest. It was easy to forget, for a little while, why his arm was pressed so firmly against Kurt, but every so often, he felt a twinge of sharp stinging pain that wouldn’t let him forget.

Gradually he relaxed, letting the rhythmic rise and fall of his boyfriend’s chest and the soft sound of him humming along to ‘Rose’s Turn’ lull him. But he relaxed too much, because he didn’t pull back when Kurt’s hand slipped down his arm, fingers curling around his wrist. He probably meant to hold Blaine’s hand, but the combined curiosity of the raised line across Blaine’s wrist and his immediate recoil made Kurt’s fingers clamp tighter, holding him in place.

His voice was very calm and slow when he spoke. “Blaine.”

“Kurt?” Blaine asked, hoping that they weren’t about to have the conversation he thought they were going to have.

“You’re shaking,” Kurt said. His voice was too casual, and it didn’t make Blaine feel one whit better about the situation.

“I’m cold,” Blaine said, trying to pull away and reach for the sweater abandoned miles away on the floor of Kurt’s room. But the movement lifted his arm and he knew the exact instant Kurt  _saw_.


	2. Chapter 2

A gasp tore from Kurt’s throat and grip tightened further, hard enough to hurt. “Blaine Michael Anderson. What is this?”

Blaine ripped his hand free, the motion tearing the cut open again and he could see blood welling to the surface, bright and red and nauseating. He almost fell off the bed in his haste to get to his shirt, and by the time he’d managed to pull it over his head, Kurt was standing right in front of him, catching his left arm again. He shoved the sleeve up, a trail of blood following it. Blaine tried to pull away again, but Kurt wouldn’t let go this time, holding him in place with both hands.

“It’s nothing.”

“Like fuck it is,” Kurt snapped. “Blaine, just  _tell_  me this isn’t what I think it is.”

Those words gave Blaine enough strength to fully pull away, brushing the sleeve back down, holding his palm over the cut to stem the already slowing flow of blood.

“I tripped.”

“You tripped.”

“Yes.”

“And whatever you tripped over cut you in a perfectly straight line.”

“It happens.”

“I’m not stupid.”

Blaine shrugged, folding his arms around himself. He ducked his head, avoiding Kurt’s eyes, and moved toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Dalton.”

“You’re not leaving.”

“You can’t keep me here.”

Kurt reached for Blaine’s shoulder. He tried to back away, but he hit the dresser hard enough to make the various bottles shake, some falling to the ground at his feet. One broke open, spilling some sort of hair product all over the floor. Kurt didn’t even glance at it.

“I’m not trying to keep you here. Blaine, honey, I’m worried about you. Talk to me, okay? Tell me what this is.”

“I already told you it’s nothing. It’s not anything. It’s the opposite of something. It’s… it’s a stupid accident.”

“And it’s not happening again?”

Blaine closed his mouth, his lips pressing together in a tight line. Kurt was watching him warily from a few feet away, his one hand still half outstretched toward him. He could see pity in Kurt’s eyes, a gleam that might have been tears. He kicked his bag toward the door and Kurt jumped, a little flicker of fear crossing his face before it solidified into determination. Blaine sidestepped; Kurt moved with him, blocking the way to freedom.

“What?” he demanded. “Did you think that your boyfriend was perfect? I’m  _not_ , Kurt. I am so  _fucking_  far from perfect.”

“It’s not… I don’t think… Tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”

He knew he shouldn’t have done it. Kurt didn’t deserve it, and there was no need to traumatize him further, but he wanted to  _go._ He wanted to turn and run until he couldn’t get any further away and nobody knew how pathetic he was. He yanked the sleeve back, baring his wrist. “What _does_  it look like?”

Kurt flinched back. Blaine knew what it looked like. Some nights he stayed awake, staring at it until he could see it with his eyes closed or open. The faint scars from when his mind was too locked in its own cycle of hatred and anger to try to match his earlier, only somewhat more rational, scars. The faint smear of drying blood from the sleeve pulling across it, his skin raised and red and ugly.

Kurt pushed his hand away, horror painted all over his face. “Blaine…”

“Stop saying my name,” Blaine said, raising his wrist again. It hung in the air between them, a physical barrier Kurt wasn’t yet willing to cross. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. It’s a scrape, I tripped. It’s a burn from helping my father work on his stupid car. I caught it on a door latch. It’s a birthmark. Pick your favorite.  _What_  do you want to hear?”

“I want the truth.”

He probably should have been impressed how calm Kurt sounded, even if he looked ready to either cry or punch him. But all he wanted was to get away and Kurt refused to let him. It made every fight-or-flight response in his body go off at once, leaving him tense and shaking.

“You just told me you weren’t stupid.”

“ _Damn it_ , Blaine. I don’t want to jump to some conclusion--”

“Fine.” Blaine shoved Kurt away. He stepped away, out from between Kurt and the bed, and into the center of the room. He felt less cornered, felt like he could breathe again, but it didn’t make his words any less sharp. “I cut, okay? Is that what you wanted?”

“It’s not what  _I_  wanted.”

“Yeah, well it’s what you got.”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“I told you what you wanted to know. Now let me go.”

“Can we just talk for a second? Without you jumping down my throat every time I say something?”

“What’s there to talk about?”

Kurt rubbed the bridge of his nose and took a few very measured breaths. “Maybe the fact that you…” he gestured in Blaine’s direction, as though that were an appropriate ending for his sentence. “You know.”

“If you can’t even say it, how are we supposed to talk about it? One simple word, Kurt. Two syllables.”

“I’m not… it doesn’t matter, whatever you call it. Why would you do something so stupid?” Kurt’s hand clamped over his mouth. “No, that’s not what I--”

“It’s exactly what you meant. I may be stupid, but at least I’m not blind.”

“What?”

“We’ve been dating for three months. You never noticed anything? Never even had any suspicions that your boyfriend’s been slicing himself up at night?”

The words were made to hurt. Kurt prided himself on his ability to know things about people, from Mercedes’ latest crush to what ugly outfit Rachel wore when she was annoyed with her dads. He felt a little guilty when he saw Kurt’s face, a retort frozen on his lips. He wasn’t about to give him time to recover. Blaine snatched up his bag and pushed past him. He was in his car before he heard Kurt shout his name.


	3. Chapter 3

He hadn’t even made it down the block when his phone rang, Kurt’s name on the display. He pressed the button to ignore it. It beeped again with a voicemail. Then he got a text.

Kurt Hummel 7:27 PM

I’m so so so so sorry. Call me?

Kurt Hummel 7:29 PM

Blaine?

Kurt Hummel 7:35 PM

I know you’re mad at me, but text me back

Kurt Hummel 7:42 PM

I’m worried. Blaine, please

Kurt Hummel 7:45 PM

I love you

Blaine parked his car in the Dalton lot and sat there for a while. He pulled his arms into his chest and closed his eyes tight enough to see starbursts. He’d never, ever meant for Kurt to find out. He’d meant to quit and maybe one day tell him. One day far enough in the future that the constant itching would have gone away, when he could talk about it without his hand going reflexively to the band of scars and rubbing at them.

Even now, his hand was pressing against his wrist, waiting for the heartbeat of weakness to grant permission to tear it open again, with his nails if he needed to. His phone bleeped, reminding him of the voicemail. It gave him an excuse to let go and flick open the message.

“Blaine, please just answer. Or call me back. I don’t… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t understand. I love you, okay? Don’t forget that, whatever happens. Please, please, please, don’t do anything… impulsive. I love you. I’m sorry and I’m scared for you. I just… okay, obviously you’re not going to call me back. You’re probably not even going to listen to this. I love you.”

Kurt Hummel 7:52 PM

Just let me know you’re ok

Blaine Anderson 7:54 PM

I’ll text you later

He wasn’t fine, not even remotely, but he’d managed to drive safely back to Dalton, and he’d passed the worst of the urges about halfway there. It was part of the reason he always made obsessively sure there was nothing even remotely sharp in his car. He tugged at the sleeve again, pulling it as far down as it would go and got out of the car.

Jeff was lounging against his door when he arrived. He held his phone out so Blaine could see the text message there.

Kurt Hummel 7:48 PM

Will you make sure Blaine’s ok?

“What’s this about?” Jeff asked.

“Nothing.”

“Fool me once…” Jeff muttered. He followed Blaine inside his room, without waiting for Blaine to either invite him in or tell him to stay out. “You okay?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so. Wanna tell me what happened?”

“Not really.”

Jeff pulled David’s chair out from his desk and sat, resting his feet on the desk. “I’m patient.”

“No, you’re not. And David’s going to kill you if he finds you’ve got your feet up there.”

He shrugged, unconcerned, pulling out his phone. “Whatever. I’m telling Kurt you’re alive. Any alternate phrasing I should use?”

“Shut up.”

“I figured. How’d it go?”

Blaine dropped into his chair, his arms crossed over his stomach. “It was sort of an accident he found out.”

“Yeah, I figured that too. You wouldn’t have told me if I hadn’t cornered you.”

“I didn’t even mean to. I just… it itched and I wanted it to… not.”

“You need to stop.”

Blaine curled in tighter around himself, drawing his legs up onto the chair with him. Jeff was right, and that Blaine had promised he was quitting was the only reason Jeff hadn’t gone immediately to either Wes or one of the teachers when he’d found out. He heard the sound of a chair rolling and then Jeff was beside him, peering at him.

“I’m trying.”

“And the longer you let it keep happening, the longer it’ll take you to quit.”

“I’m not letting it. It’s… I’m so stupid.”

“Nuh-uh,” Jeff said, shifting back in his chair and making Blaine look at him again. “That’s not going to help. You’re not stupid. You may do stupid things, but we all do.” He waved his cell phone in the air. “He loves you, and he was frantic. This has to stop, Blaine.”

“Since when are you all ‘tough love’?”

“Since I got a call from your practically sobbing boyfriend, begging me to tell him as soon as you walked in the door. You realize you’re not just hurting yourself anymore?”

“This has nothing to do with him.”

Blaine had hoped that Jeff would argue with him. He could argue circles around anyone who tried, but Jeff been dealing with Blaine at his worst long enough that he didn’t let himself be drawn into it. He just spoke over Blaine.

“I shouldn’t have stayed quiet as long as I did, but you swore to me you were going to stop.”

It took a second for the words to break through the haze in Blaine’s mind. He stood up so quickly he almost tripped. “You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“I told you that if I thought you were about to do something stupid, I’d drive you straight to the hospital myself. Kurt’s right to be worried about you. You haven’t been this much of a mess for a really, really long time. So, you’re going to get ready for bed, and I’m going to go grab my computer and we’re going to hang out tonight.”

Blaine stared at him for a second, unsure if he was kidding. “Uh…”

“And give me your keys. If you try to lock me out while I’m gone, I’ll punch you.”

Mechanically, Blaine did as Jeff requested, handing over the keys and getting ready for bed. Somewhere deep within himself he was glad that Jeff hadn’t given him a choice. He wasn’t sure if he trusted himself alone, but he did know that if Jeff had given him the option, he wouldn’t have asked him to stay.

Some nights it killed him to think that if he’d been just a little bit stronger, he could have survived the impossible itching. Or if he could have just reached out and sent a text to Jeff, or even just turned on the light and demanded that he and David have a sing-off, regardless of the hour. But he’d never been able to do that. He’d been afraid, sometimes, that if he moved even the tiniest bit, he’d lose whatever control he had over himself.

He always heard people using the phrase, ‘I don’t trust myself,’ and he used to use it himself. ‘I don’t trust myself with the cake we baked’ or ‘I don’t trust myself not to eat all the chips’ or even ‘I don’t trust myself driving in the snowstorm’ but somehow it never seemed to carry the weight it did for him now. There was a strange, panicky feeling that accompanied the inability to trust yourself. He hated it, hated the weakness and fear that came with it.

“Blaine, hands down.”

He jumped, blinking up at Jeff. He hadn’t even heard him come in. The blond was standing over him, his computer bag slung over his shoulder. He dumped it on the ground and sat on the edge of the bed next to Blaine. Gently, but firmly, he took Blaine’s hands and pried them apart. He looked at Blaine’s wrist, ignoring his attempts to pull free.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it was.”

“Well thanks,” Blaine muttered.

“The way you were talking, it sounded like you’d half cut your hand off. Hands down.”

He hadn’t realized that his hand was pressing against his wrist, rubbing at it. He pulled his hands apart and stared at them for a second, unsure what he was supposed to do with them.

“Sit on them, if you have to. Or just go to sleep.”

Blaine shifted uncomfortably on his bed. His hands had drifted closer together, and he wrenched them apart again. “I don’t… When I’m like this, if I’m alone in my head…”

“You won’t be.”

Jeff’s words were so casual they surprised him. He hadn’t understood, somehow, that Jeff had no qualms about sitting here with his mentally deranged friend, while Blaine spent the night battling himself. By the time Blaine’s mind had wrapped around that information, Jeff had his computer set up on Blaine’s desk. He’d tilted the chair so he could see Blaine out of the corner of his eye, but without staring at him.

“Go to sleep.”

It wasn’t even nine, but Blaine’s options seemed limited to spending the next couple of hours cross-legged on his bed, torturing himself with the relentless, endless itching or spending a while forcing himself to sleep. He chose the second option, curling up in a ball in his bed.

“Goodnight, Blaine.”


	4. Chapter 4

The diffuse glow of Jeff’s computer must have lulled him to sleep, because the next thing he knew it was morning, and the sun was shining on the foot of his bed. A slip of paper was on the table in front of him, written in Jeff’s hasty scrawl.

 

Blaine--  
Sorry for running, but I have tennis at 8. Hopefully I’ll be back before you wake up, but if not, you know where to find me. I have my phone if it’s an emergency. I have my phone even if it’s not. Coach decided to let the assistant coach coach. I never liked him much anyway.

Jeff

P.S. I’m not going to make you call him, but I bet Kurt wants to hear from you. Just let him know you’re ok. Remember he loves you, and he’s probably confused as fuck right now.

Blaine let the paper fall back to the desk. Sleep had banished the worst of last night’s horror, but it was still there, lurking beneath his skin. Because Kurt knew, and probably he hated him. Found him as repulsive as Blaine found himself, in the darkest parts of his mind. But the worst part was that Jeff was right. He shouldn’t have run out on Kurt, even if he didn’t know what any of his other options might have been. The voice in his mind, the one that sounded suspiciously like Jeff, reminded him they could have actually talked. But talking was not an option, not when Blaine could barely breathe with fear.

The thought plagued him even while he was getting dressed. He managed to avoid it for half an hour, but at last, he wandered over to his phone and keyed in Kurt’s number. It only rang once.

“Blaine?”

“It’s me.”

He heard a sigh of relief and then the sound of Kurt sitting down heavily, like his legs had gone out from under him. “Blaine.”

“I’m okay. Can we talk? I mean… can you come here? To Dalton?”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Kurt?”

“Yeah?” He could hear the remnants of fear in Kurt’s breathy voice.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’ll be there soon.”

Kurt must have disregarded every law on his way to Dalton, because Blaine had just stepped into the hall to see if Jeff was back from practice when he saw Kurt coming down the hall. He broke into a sprint as soon as he saw Blaine, reaching him with enough force to knock them both back into the wall.

Kurt’s arms were tight enough to hurt, but Blaine wasn’t about to complain. He was holding Kurt as tightly as he could, face buried against his boyfriend’s neck. It took him a minute to realize that Kurt was whispering, “It’s okay, it’s okay” over and over again into his hair.

Somebody cleared their throat next to them and they sprang apart, a faint blush staining Kurt’s cheeks. But it was Jeff, a pair of tennis rackets resting on his shoulders.

“You might want to take this inside, guys. I’ll grab my computer and leave you two alone.” His voice was low enough for only Kurt and Blaine to hear him. He disappeared for a second and came back, computer balanced on one arm, his fingers threaded through the rackets. “Just… be careful, okay?”

Blaine wasn’t sure which one of them he was talking to. Jeff hadn’t looked directly at either of them when he’d spoken, and he walked away immediately after, almost comically focused on keeping the computer and rackets from falling to the ground.

“He’s right,” Blaine said, taking Kurt’s hand and leading him into his room. He locked the door behind them. He moved to his computer, giving himself a few more precious seconds before he started The Conversation. He turned his iTunes on shuffle to block their voices from anyone in the hall, forgetting which song was playing immediately after it started, and turned back to Kurt, who was standing in the middle of the room.

“Does Jeff know?”

Blaine flinched a little, but he nodded. “He found out about a year ago. Less, maybe. I don’t remember exactly.”

He could see the questions building in Kurt’s eyes, but he remained silent, even if the effort had him shifting from foot to foot on the carpet in Dalton red. Blaine took his hands, drawing in one last, lung-achingly deep breath before he started.

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything you’ll tell me.”

He led Kurt to his bed and settled himself comfortably into one of the corners. He gestured Kurt to follow him, and he did, although he sat a few inches away, just far enough to make Blaine’s stomach twist. He hadn’t thought that the knowledge of what he did to himself would make him so abhorrent that Kurt wouldn’t want to touch him. He forgot, somewhere, that Kurt hadn’t shied away from hugging him earlier.

“I’ll tell you what I can, but… but you have to hear me through. If you can’t, you’ll just have to forget you… forget about this.”

“You’re expecting me to just forget about it?”

“Kurt.”

Kurt fell silent. Blaine could feel the weight of Kurt’s gaze, and he thought he understood what people meant when they said “weight of the world.” He could feel waves of panic rising in him, the kind of panic that always led to him scrabbling with the drawer, pulling it open as fast as he could physically make it go. He didn’t want to talk about this in the same way he didn’t want to be hit by a bus or have his liver pecked out by a giant eagle.

“When did you start?” Kurt’s voice was a little too nonchalant and Blaine wasn’t sure what that meant. He no longer sounded ready to cry, like he had in his voicemail last night or when they spoke this morning.

“Couple years ago,” Blaine said. His voice caught in his throat and he had to pause to clear it. “When I was still at my old school. Some of the kids there did it, and it was sort of a thing for them. Everyone knew. They’d always talk about it in the cafeteria before school. I thought… I don’t know. I thought maybe it was a way to get back at the bullies. Sort of, ‘you can do whatever the hell you want to me, but only I get to do this.’”

“You started doing this because people were calling you names?” The disbelief in Kurt’s voice made Blaine’s chest ache.

“I didn’t say it was a smart thing to do. It was stupid and I hate every moment of every day that I even considered it.”

“Why did you? Consider it, I mean.”

“The first time… I didn’t think I could do it. I figured I’d try, but who’d want to do that to themselves, you know? I thought if they were doing it was probably good for something. Now, I’m not so sure if they even were. I didn’t know you could get addicted to it, but by the time I figured it out…” Blaine shrugged.

“It was too late.”

“Way too late.”

Blaine sat for a moment, his hands twitching toward one another. He was uncomfortable, talking about things he never really planned on sharing. The most he’d told anyone before was that he had done it. Jeff hadn’t asked for any more, and Blaine hadn’t been willing to give any more. He realized he was rubbing his wrist against his jeans and he clenched his fingers in the fabric, willing himself to still.

Kurt reached out hesitantly and took Blaine’s left hand in both of his. “You okay?”

“It gets worse when I get… I don’t know. Upset. It’s a way of coping with stress.”

“Do you want to stop talking about it?”

Yes. Yes, yes, yesyesyesyesyes.

“No. If I don’t tell you now, I don’t think I ever will.” Every inch of him was screaming for him to stop talking, to turn and run. He didn’t want to tell Kurt this, didn’t want to burden him with the information that would drive him away forever. He’d rather they just pretend that the last twenty-four hours had never happened.

“It got bad pretty quick. Every night, I…” Blaine stopped, closing his eyes, trying to force the memories from his mind. He wasn’t so far removed from that time that he could talk about it, or remember it, without the itching starting again, building immediately to the irresistible urge. He could still feel the way he felt on those nights, unable to stop himself, even if he’d wanted to. He hadn’t always. Sometimes he’d been counting down the seconds until he could be alone.

“I’d wait until everybody else had fallen asleep. It got to the point where I couldn’t feel right without it. If I didn’t… I couldn’t sleep if I hadn’t. Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t even breathe.”

“What… what makes you do it?”

“It depends. It’s… sometimes nothing. Or if there is something, I don’t know what it is. I can be feeling fine, working on homework or listening to music, or even in the middle of Warblers practice, and suddenly it’ll just start itching. It’s worse when I have bad days. I’ve…”

Before he let himself think about what he was doing, he tugged his sleeve up. There was one scar there, darker and longer than the rest, standing separate from the pale band hidden beneath the red, scabbed skin. He wished that the scars were just his memories of where they had been, and maybe some of them were, but this one wasn’t. Kurt’s breath hissed through his teeth and he reached toward it, drawing his hand back at the last second.

“Can I…?”

“If you want. They don’t hurt.” Or nothing you do will change what does hurt, anyway.

Kurt’s fingers were hesitant, hovering above his skin for a few heartbeats. Rationally, Blaine knew Kurt wouldn’t be able to feel a difference between the scars and unmarred skin, but he knew where they were. When Kurt traced one he shivered, tensing. Kurt’s hand pulled away instantly.

“Blaine?”

“I’ve never let anyone else touch them. Jeff’s the only other person who’s even seen them.”

“What happened? Why did you…?”

Kurt seemed almost as reluctant to say it as Blaine was to think it. He supposed somewhere along the way he was going to have to admit to himself, and probably Kurt as well what he was, but for now it was easier to pretend it wasn’t going to become an issue.

“It was the night after the dance.”

Kurt made a little pained noise. “That was a year ago. How bad was it?”

“I don’t really remember doing it. I was so angry, and I hurt so bad. I only remember that after I was afraid I’d… It bled a lot. I decided the next day I had to stop.”

Kurt was too quiet. Blaine took the opportunity to pull his sleeve back down, holding it in place with his fingers. “What are you thinking?”

“Last night. What I did. It probably didn’t help, did it?”

He didn’t want to lie, even if he wanted to tell the truth a lot less. “Jeff stayed with me. He figured out what was up when you called him and he was waiting for me when I got here. I was okay.”

“If Jeff hadn’t…?”

Blaine shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. Maybe. I can never tell if I’m going to lose until after I already have. Some nights I can distract myself by counting as high as I can until I fall asleep, sometimes I’m sitting at my desk, or in the bathroom, or wherever I can be alone and the knife’s in my hand and I can hold on just long enough for the worst of it to pass.”

Kurt was quiet again. Blaine reached for him, but when Kurt didn’t copy the motion, he let his hand fall back to the bed.

“Why?” Kurt asked at last.

“Why what?”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“This isn’t something you open up a conversation with. And it’s definitely not something you start a relationship with. I hate myself every day. I hate that I can’t control myself, and that no matter whether I’m happy or sad or angry or annoyed I have to do this. I want to stop more than I want to breathe and I can’t.”

“I’m trying to understand, Blaine, I am. I just… don’t get it. Why? You’re the last person I ever thought would… do something like this to themselves.”

“I told you I’m not perfect,” Blaine said. He tried to sound calm, but he thought he just sounded petulant.

“What’s this about courage, then? What about this is courageous or brave or--”

“It’s not. I’m an absolute coward, Kurt. Why do you think I tried so hard to help you? Even if I can’t do a damn thing right for myself, at least I can help you. I could keep you from doing something like this.”

Kurt stood from his bed, arms folded in front of him. “I wouldn’t. It’s… Blaine, why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you not happy? Is it something I did?”

“What?” Blaine stood. “No, no. Kurt, it’s nothing like that. Honey, this isn’t you. Nothing about this is your fault. It’s all me.”

“I’m trying to understand this. I am but… you’re you. You’re Blaine Anderson and everybody looks up to you, and they all want to be you…”

The tiniest bit of bitterness welled up in Blaine’s heart. He shrugged. “I’m a good actor. Always have been. But nothing I said to you was a lie. I do love you.”

The pause was just a breath too long, and Blaine could almost hear his heart break. “I love you. I just need to… think about this, okay?”

He’d known it was coming all along. He nodded, drawing on every bit of that acting ability he’d touted only a few seconds earlier. “I understand.”

But when Kurt walked out, closing the door almost silently behind him, Blaine felt his knees go weak and he dropped back onto the bed, folding in on himself. He’d been that way for maybe fifteen seconds when he heard running footsteps in the hall. He hadn’t known that footsteps could sound angry, but these did. The door flew open and Jeff stood there, fury painted on his face.

“What the hell was he thinking leaving you alone like that?” He dropped to his knees in front of Blaine. “Jesus fucking Christ. Are you okay?”

“I didn’t think he’d actually leave. I know I’m worthless and disgusting--”

“Stop talking. You are none of those things and you know it.” The bed shifted and Jeff sat beside him. “Kurt’s just confused.”

“You said that last night.”

“He probably still is. This isn’t the easiest thing to swallow, Blaine.”

“You handled it okay.”

“Yeah, in front of you. I spent the next couple of hours freaking the fuck out. Nick thought I’d gone crazy. Kurt doesn’t really have the luxury of anywhere else to go at Dalton.”

Blaine was quiet, his body hunched over. He’d never thought that the knowledge of what he was was that repulsive. He wanted to stop, he wanted to be normal. He wanted it so badly that he hurt, but even that wasn’t enough. Just as badly as he wanted to stop, he wanted to make all of this pain to go away, and the only way he knew to do that was through the physical pain and the blood.

“Hands,” Jeff reminded him. He was quieter than Blaine had ever seen him. Once again, he took Blaine’s hands, pulling them apart and holding his left arm in his lap. “You’ve got to let this one heal.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Jeff asked. He looked genuinely perplexed. “‘Cause you need help? That’s why you have friends. That and to get you free coffee when you’re late for class.”

Blaine snorted. “You did that once.”

“Twice, actually. That one time before our midterm and then when you overslept after spending all night talking to Kurt on Skype.”

“Thank you.”

“If you make me buy you many more coffees, you’ll be repaying me with sexual favors.”

“I wasn’t talking about the coffees.”

Jeff shrugged. “I know. But I can’t very well demand sexual favors for actually being a good friend. The coffees, on the other hand.”

Blaine hit him. “Shut up.”

“Are you feeling better?”

“Not really.”

“Well, if you looked up from whatever is so very interesting on that hideous carpet, you might.”

Blaine looked up in time to see the door closing. Kurt was standing there, biting his lip. “Hi, Blaine.”

“You came back.”

Kurt smiled. It was a little sad, but it was still a smile. “Of course I did.”


End file.
